Ray Tarheel Tiger Cook Earns UMP Summer Nationals Tour Win at Paducah

The No. 53 team currently finds themselves eighth in the latest LOLMDS point standings.

The Brasstown, North Carolina, Late Model Dirt Series racer known as the "Tarheel Tiger" recently claimed the richest payday of his year at Paducah International Raceway in Paducah, Kentucky. For Ray Cook and the D&R Motorsports team this was their third win of the 2011 racing season.

K&N sponsored Ray Cook "The Tarheel Tiger" has been racing since 1987, and to date his most memorable moment has been Winning the 2000 Show-Me 100.

The demanding UMP Summer Nationals Tour visited PIR, and a highly competitive field of competitors were on hand for the "Chris Smith Memorial." After inking the third quickest lap in his group during qualifying, Cook went on to win his stacked heat race. After drawing the pole position prior to the start of the 40-lap feature event, the K&N sponsored driver led flag-to-flag en route to capturing the $12,000 top prize.

Cook was challenged early in the race, but managed to hold off a furious onslaught from NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver, Austin Dillon from Welcome, North Carolina. Then after building a comfortable lead over the Summer Nationals point leader, Shannon Babb from Moweaqua, Illinois, Cook motored on to claim his second win ever on the month long tour.

The $12,000 prize at Paducah International Raceway was Cook's biggest payday of the season thus far.

In addition to the win in Paducah, the No. 53 team entered three additional races from June 30 to July 3rd, in the states of Tennessee and Ohio. On Thursday evening, Cook finished tenth in a $5,000 to win UMP Summer Nationals program at Clayhill Motorsports in Atwood, Tennessee.

Then in a pair of $10,000 to win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series battles, Cook wound up seventeenth at the Portsmouth Raceway Park in Portsmouth, Ohio on Saturday, and twelfth at the Muskingum County Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio on Sunday. And after Cook survived the caution plagued race last weekend at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Mississippi with another twelfth place finish, he now stands in eighth in the latest LOLMDS point standings.

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